Semiconductor detectors are attractive and have become popular for the field of nuclear medicine because of their very small size and weight, excellent spatial resolution, and direct conversion of gamma photons into electrical signals. Those features make such a detector an ideal applicant for small animal imaging or tiled detectors where FFOV (full field of view) is achieved by tiling many small and modular detectors together because the required imaging FOV is larger than the size of typical semiconductor detectors.
However, conventional collimation methods are not adequate to fully utilize the advantages of small and independent modular detectors. In addition, conventional collimation methods require collimator exchanging and increase system cost due to the need for multiple sets of collimators depending on isotope energy and imaging options. Further, the collimator exchanging requirement significantly limits system design. For instance, in full or partial ring-type systems, it is a great challenge to exchange collimators.
Therefore, there exists a need to more filly utilize the use of semiconductor detectors and minimize collimator exchanging.